The Pirate Bay has to be one of the best known sites on the whole web and has caused more than a few headaches to the entertainment industry worldwide, but did you know that this world wide file sharing phenomenon got started with one single server.

Say what you will about The Pirate Bay, but there is no getting around the fact that it has had a pretty profound effect on the web and our society. Entertainment lobbying organizations may like to paint the people behind the site as nothing better than thieves, but this one site has probably done more to change how we get and consume our entertainment in this modern web-orient world.

It is because of this effect that the Computer Museum in Linkoping, Sweden, will be having the original server computer on permanent display. A monumental occasion considering that this September will mark the tenth anniversary of when The Pirate Bay was first founded. The only changes being made to the computer is the placement of a glass panel that not only shows off the antiquated internals of the server, but also is inscribed with a short history of The Pirate Bay and its founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg.

Here is that inscription as translated from the original Swedish text.

Stockholm, in the year of 2004. In the home of Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, at his parent’s place, this ordinary computer is running day and night. With a special software and a standard broadband connection this machine was the beginning for one of the most loved, hated and debated phenomena in modern time – the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.

In less than ten years The Pirate Bay has become a contemporary historical phenomenon, due to its distinguished position in the file-sharing debate. The discussions that have sprung from this simple computer server concerns serious subjects as freedom of speech, global democracy and of course the sole existence of copyright.

Support groups and political parties have gathered around the now well-known banner of The Pirate Bay. Together they stand in the center of a cultural revolution. A revolution that begun in a dark grey metal box under a bed.